front subframe components finished, spent more than a good hour with brushing that down to bare metal. also cleaned the motor mounts which are in fair shape. before and after

put the pedal assembly in the parts washer and strangely it ate the paint, that normally doesnt happen, so i stripped it and primered it, the pedals have been painted. and luckily the bushing and pins are not worn badly.

also traded my pair of N600 rims for some Zs with "RastaN" so now i have 5 matching wheels, all of which will need to be sandblasted and powder coated semi gloss black

This build is absolutely awesome!
What a great read so far! I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one, makes me want to go down and get work done on my Bellett, haha.
Great inspiration man, keep up the awesome work!

ok went and finally pressure washed the z600, then brought it back to be painted, again this is almond white, rustoleum paint. some areas came out quite well others not so much and will need extra coats or sanding of paint runs.

Gotcha Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed... I'm looking for a cheap, easy way to paint my interior (and later exterior) and thought yours turned out darn nice- now I understand how you got the result! I don't have much painting experience (outside of my beloved rattle cans), so I'm lookin' to learn..

vwdmc16 wrote:

its not the rattle form, im using a air compressor and mixing the paint for the gun.

no worries, this method take more work but can yield a better result and for less money.

loosely assembled the front end to help clean up the garage and make it mobile again although fully stripped the car can be picked up and moved around like a wheelbarrow. the frame will have to drop out again to mount the engine after i clean that up.

untill I get some sound insulation, i dont want to reinstall the dashboard so I took the top end off the engine, this will make it easier to pick up and clean.

all the sealing surfaces look good except where it was leaking at the camshaft housing seam, the rings and pistons are great too. by the looks of the blue liquid gasket i think someone has had the engine split apart for work before

sorry the pix are a bit blurry, i cant adjust the camera now the display is busted

spent a few hours cleaning the top and bottom end, didnt get it quite as clean i wanted but its a hell of an improvement.

got to use one of my NOS gaskets, i hope its up to the job after 40 years sitting on the shelf

very carefully compressed the piston rings with my finders after liberal amounts of oil. when on pretty easy

Installed this other chain tensioner that i had, the one i have been using was sized solid, this new ones works freely but had a hole drilled in the top for some reason, cleaned it up and welded the hole. but it gave me an idea, this would be a great place to drill and tap for a oil feed line for a turbo. I think ill take this new tensioner apart again and install a stiffer spring, the factory one isnt very stiff and I have little confidence the oil pump can make much pressure to assist it. Im just really afraid of the cam chain skipping a tooth and bending another valve.

also reinstalled the rear panels and seat mostly to get them out of my living room, they cleaned up nice but when all said and done they will be reupholstered too,

I love the project and you're doing a great job on the resto so far! Have you thought any more about getting that thing low? Maybe some strut tower extensions or something? The watercooled VW guys do that quite often for more suspension travel.

yeah I will work on getting is slammed after its back together for a while. the rear is going to be trickier to lower, adding lowering blocks to the springs will make the spring plates hit the brake backing plates.

anyways the engine is back in, need a cam housing gasket before the head can go on. and i need to get more sound deadening for the interior

Today i bought some gasket material and painstakingly cut out a new gasket for the camshaft housing and put the top end together. Not however until i retrieved the large washer i dropped down the timing chain groove which goes deep into the engine. What a heart stopper there.

the top engine is all back together, I had to do alot of sanding on the inside of the ignition advance mechanism for it to fit over the end of the camshaft like it should, I guess I just forced it on with a hammer last time. The part that does fit properly is most likely in my cooking tray of rusty parts that came in the trunk of the car, there is a few igintion advance mechanisms that are rusted solid. Strange how parts dont fit after 4o years.

So with the carb and ignition on it should be ready to fire, But first I need to get a new alternator rectifier unit, mine was so rotted the output wire broke off and there was no chance of it being repaired with all the corrosion. A good used one is $50 on ebay

Received my 50' of Fatmax sound insulation, its thiner that I expected so ill have to double it up in some areas.

I successfully have the dashboard back in place, this was not as easy as I anticipated, even with the windshield out. good thing its not a heavy dash as I have to hold it up with one hand for a while as i got all the connections back together.

Right before re installing the dash I took 3 gauges apart for a good cleaning and repainted the needles red as they were quiet faded. I wish I had a small triangle of vinyl to recover the redline on the tach, though the wrinkled cracks give it character i suppose

also managed to get the wheel off its hub, that took alot of force, but every thing looks to be in great shape.

Next was the shifter which always had alot of play and was generally numb feeling. The problem was the lower U joint, calling it crude is an overstatement. The issue was the rubber bushing had gotten quite loose, my idea was to take it all apart and weld in a small ball bearing to replace the rubber, but a much simpler and quick solution was to simply pinch the metal down to tighten down on the rubber. worked quite well.

sorry the pic is blurred

Finally the exhaust it done too. I disassembled and cleaned the rusty bits and repainted with super high temp paint, and sanded the flanges flat.also ground down the welds and the end of the tubes, probably wont be able to tell the difference but I know it flows better now

The gaskets were in no shape to be re used so i made templates out of them and cut copper gaskets to use, what a pain to make so hopefully they last.